If you had to write down everything that comes to mind when you think of injustice or inequality in your everyday life… You might also think about your school system and things you wish were run differently.. You might think that you don’t have enough voice in what kind of relevant content should be taught, that teachers act sometimes unfair and that you don’t have the right to protest against it. Or that you don’t have to fear any kind of discrimination or different treatment in school based on
your gender or skin color. Even though education plays an important role in achieving a sustainable future for all, it is more complex… On the one hand education is very important to gain knowledge and awareness and reflect attitudes. But on the other hand, not everybody can have the same access to education and so education can also foster inequalities. Wait! The school? Shouldn't school be the same for everybody? To find out more, what can be unfair about the school system, we talked to Shaya
n. He explored inequalities in the Austrian school system in his final school paper. Children often start with very different backgrounds into the school life. According to the Austrian Chamber of Labour, there are three factors which determine your success at school: the financial situation, the education and the origin of the parents. Additionally, there are bigger challenges for migrant children which, according to the PISA study from 2018, do not have equal opportunities. So far, the school
system
is set up in a way that requires to get additional help at home. But many parents do not have the time nor the money for private lessons or support at home. Also the level of education of the parents is decisive for the school career of their children. If the father is a lawyer, the child will be able to study law. Addressing the factor of the origin of the parents, there are two problems: They often do not know very well the language and the school system. For example, my parents are fro
m Iran and the school system there is completely different. There are, for instance, fewer schools to choose from. Nobody here consulted us, so we could not know about the types of schools that could be considered. Children with a migratory background have additional burdens to overcome. The often have to face racism or opressing experiences and this again affects the motivation whether one likes
going to school or how much one enjoy learning. In addition to that, there is also a language barri
er. The lack of language skills in the teaching language is one of the biggest challenges. Because the school system is built in a way that it is not adapted to the different language skills. That means that even though a migrant child can speak the teaching language well, it could not be enough for the graduation or a university due to the fact that it is nearly impossible to get to the level of a native speaker
within 3 or 4 years which is demanded by the school system though. Another point wh
ich is not often considered is that children with a migratory background have additional extracurricular stress or burdens. I as well as many others have thought more than once
about dropping out of school. By that, I mean the insecurity during the asylum procedure. Always living with these questions: "Am I going to stay in this country? Is it worth studying for the test? Or will I get deported anyway?" Moreover, I felt like the teachers saw the private difficulties of mine and the other student
s in the class room as a whole package. For example, I got the feeling that the teachers did not consider that I was not able to study so much since I had to accompany my father
to his medical appointments in order to translate for him. Or that my family has a judical appointment where I am urgently needed. Imagine education as a race with a race track. Some kids have a big head start because their parents have for example a lot of money and/or higher education. Other kids, often kids with a mig
ration background run the same race but have additionally obstacles to overcome. This shows that the education system is not fair for everyone. At first, I think it is important to adapt the pedagogical education of the teachers to those requirements so that the teachers know how to deal with a class full of different students. In other words, how to
deal with the fact that not everybody in class has
„Lukas“ or „Maximilian“ as their names, but there are also „Muhammed“ and „Ali“. They do not hav
e the same opportunities as their class mates. A flexible approach with the class could increase the chances of equal opportunity. And now coming to an important topic: the grading system. I am part of the „Youth Experts“. It is a group of experts consisting of 12 young people with different educational backgrounds and advise the education foundation in promoting the best projects for more equality of opportunity in the education system. One survey we conducted with 300 students about the change
s they wish
to see in the school system shows that the grading system
was on under the most important points of criticism. Even people who were born here
claimed that the grading system is not suitable and I was thinking, if such people say
something like that, what should the others with a migratory background do? That is why I would wish, that there will be a concrete guideline and a change on how to grade a class more fairly. So, as we have seen, education does not sorely have positive impact
s. It is very important to think about that not everybody has the same access to the same quality of education. That depending on family backround, not everybody can have the same chances to achieve a higher education. That children with a flight experience have to deal with many other challenges besides school, that the school system does not offer enough resources to deal with diversity in classes and that the grading system does not allow enough flexibility.
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